MotorMouth Radio

Used car inspections, brake bleed tech & Olds 455 teardown

Chris poses a question about having a used car looked at pre-purchase and Ray
offers quite a few reasons why this is a good idea. Ray ran into an interesting problem when
bleeding the brakes on a new disc brake install on a Mustang, and brought in the specialty
measurement gauge he used to verify and solve the "no pedal" issue. It was learned that
tearing down the top end of an Olds 455 is easier said than done, or Ray is just getting old.
Check our social media feed to see the pictures. On Instagram: @real_motormouthradio and
on You Tube: https://youtu.be/HqDLTllkhaU


Duration:: 59m
Broadcast on:: 11 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

This Sunday. Every Sunday. Side-by-side at the microphone from the green light to the speed trap. Chris Witzer and Ray Gerino calls him as they seize him and you better believe him. Here! Relevant news by his opinions and outright post regarding every aspect of automotive culture. Gasps and mechanical trickery never before revealed over FCC regulated airwaves. Thrills, re-explosive tension as Chris and Ray cuss each other down the track and barrel roll across the finish line and laughing at certain disaster as they shake hands for the devil. All that much more. This Sunday at high noon on the motor-mouthed radio hour. Call in and speak live with the wizards of speed and live feed. Chris Witzer and Ray Gerino bring the whole family. Kids under 12 get in free. Every Sunday at noon on WHPC. Take the Long Island Expressway to the Meadowbrook Parkway and look for the sign saying no parking on the expressway and no express service on the parkway. Go ride on Highway 24 to Garden City. Two dollar all day parking includes Pit Pass. Monday! I only want you to listen to this commercial if you're under 25. It's about new Tanya Taning Butter. The sun tan product with no sunscreen added. And you know what that means. It means the only ingredients between you and the sun are natural coconut oil and cocoa butter. Hawaii's favorites. That and the little lava smoke thrown in there. So when you see the lava smoke, you know. You've tuned in too. Long Island is only on the motor folk show. Bird of mouth radio with your host Ray Gerino and Chris Witzer. Chris I see the smoke emanating out of all the orifices in your room there. And there are orifices to smoke come out. And you look marvelous in that tanning butter that they sent you. I know they got a case of that stuff. It comes in the lotion and the spray and smooth, smooth applying foam. Yeah, very nice. Anyway. All right. Well, like I said last week. Yep. Take us a threat or promise. Whatever. We're back. We're back this week. Unfortunately. You know, you can get a hold of us and talk and share your stories at 516-572-7440. That's right. Do call us is to be us and make sure you do it quickly because we don't know how long we're going to be here. You never know. Every show is a confection. How can people text us or a confession? Yes. You can text us at 203-670-4127. Take those thumbs. Put them the good use. Text us now with your problem. If you don't feel like talking to us or if you go a little long because there's some people that have got problems that go a little long. You know, there have been times where I have taken the patsepi style and say, I don't want to hear about you go into dance class. Get to the point. I don't want to know what to shop, right? Yeah. You're welcome. If it's part of the story, then okay, bye. Get to the point. Get to the point. Get to the point. So I just, real fast, I want to get to the point. I just want to ask you a dumb question. Yes. When you look at shopping for a car. Yeah. And you go to, let's say you see something you like at a small used car lot. Uh-huh. Would it behoove you to the car of your interest? Take it from that lot and bring it to your mechanic to have it checked out. Oh, absolutely. Every day, every time it was out of doubt, you should. I mean, unless the guy, I'm, as well, especially if the guy sell the car as your cousin. Yeah. You want that car? Looked out by a professional alley. Exactly. And it was, I was actually reading something this morning about on social media. Of course, when it's on social media, you know, it's true. So I'm reading about some, some individual that was having trouble with a Staten Island used car lot and was one of those, don't buy from these people. Blah, blah, blah. The, the, the breath of fresh air type of comment. And I, I thought to myself when I was going through the article and I was kind of skimming through it, but this individual had taken the car on its test drive. Check engine light came on. They brought the car back. It seems that the car went behind the building and came out with the check engine light off and the excuse that it was some sort of loose wire. Okay. Yeah. You lose battery cable. You know, we're, I think we as a society, automotively, kind of will never really take that excuse seriously anyway. No. So of course, I guess they got the, whomever got the worst of the lantern up behind the door. And I'm thinking to myself, at that point, at that point, should have made a phone call to any mechanic, any technician and say, get it, make an appointment and bring this thing in. Just, just, whatever it is, a hundred bucks to just put it on the lift and take a look at it, put a scanner on it, give me some information, some background. Check. Pull the guy off the street. Hey, you know what I think about car? Come here. Call us. anything anything okay but on a on a serious note and this is why i was asked to speak at the centurion cruisers club meeting last month because one of the side here all the guns guns clicking back all talking back click click click click click click click click click click click again you that when you got up to speak did you i cock right back at him that's how join just join the club watch what you say yeah yeah i know so anyway uh and the purpose of that talk was because as you know one of my new side gigs is i do pre-purchase inspections for yes company in connecticut in your car you know and i'm very envious of this i want to join you so and what happened is there's two guys in the club who went out with you know retired police officers who got taken on deals like that because they didn't have boots on the ground somebody to look at the car make sure it actually existed um you know and and make sure it was vetted and they lost both lost money they lost a fairly good amount of money so it doesn't have to be a hundred thousand dollar car it can be you know it could be a twenty thousand or ten thousand dollar car it always pays to have a car looked at because you know guys running out the check engine like okay so they pull a battery cable for twenty minutes put it back on check engine like clear is now they sell a car and and now you know two days later it comes creeps up on you when you're driving it so yeah yeah and the thing that like a mechanic can do with a newer car is you can use a scanner that you can look it'll show you current codes but the laws you show you historic codes codes that are in in the history and in the memory and recent codes it the scanner can see everything if it's the right scanner oh great and the mechanics yeah and it doesn't take much this is what i'm finding uh fascinating when when a lot of individuals go oh you can't work on new cars yes you can i mean guys like us can work on new cars it's just the tools are different just the technology is introduced to the equation it's not like you have to listen anymore i mean i know you can probably listen to a a carburetor performing and you know if it's a sick carburetor or a carburetor is performing well just by the sound it makes well that technology has now been harnessed into something in an etch a sketch you could hold in your hand right and that's what i find fascinating is that it's not that you can't work on a newer car it's that you just need the right tools to work on a newer car that diagnoses i think in some way shape or form they is altered in some states but is this essentially the same yeah where you diagnose just using the correct tools you know case case in point and i don't know if this i don't know now if either car has been fixed let's assume they are just for the case of this of this argument a couple weeks ago reader monty's husband uh was named john called us with his fiat spider yes that didn't want to start and we and i pointed him towards the module the gm four pin module that's behind the coil on the fenderwell common point of failure um not necessarily but could be partially a heat issue and now and your own uh your cousin pat who had that who has got the corvette who had a no-start problem related to we believe a heat issue with the electronics again right these are things that all through infinitum when they put electronics in cars there's they've been affected by heat now pat's car is an older car that's been retrofitted with newer electronics like my car is right so but the it's like the it's like the pieces changed but the diagnosis stay the same they still do the same thing they'll still fail the same way because of you know of placements and things and you know so it's not as as weird and scary as as people make it out to be all the time you have to use some common sense so that's why those people don't listen to us you know yeah the and like common sense needs to be applied when you see a check engine like come on on your car that you're looking to buy and then all of a sudden miraculously goes off because of a check and check a loose wire that happened miraculously behind the the this small little shop that this used car lot is based on it's bring it to a shop have some common sense and i do have uh i do have a statement coming from coach Isaac he texted us at 203-670-4127 he says he has a car question at 91 Nissan hard body pickup after driving for about an hour with the AC on the interior fan turns off and stays off until the next day in in uh winter running the heater doesn't have this problem i'm leaning towards a short in the blower motor any ideas it's on his stepmother's truck he hasn't tested it yet he wants to bring this up on Thursday but of course we get the Thursday overflow right right well let's remember he's there in Arizona so they have if if it's 110 ambient outside inside that truck is probably 130 so yeah Isaac that could more that could be the windings of the motor uh what i would do if you can get at it this there's a plug you know an electrical plug that plugs into the to the motor a lot of times you can see it you can access it from the cab if you can remove it and then on the terminals of the motor or the other side of the plug put a put an oh meter on there and measure the resistance of the windings of the motor and see what they see what they are write it down then when it fails do the same thing and if you see much higher resistance or an open no resistance now you got your smoking gun now you know you're looking at a bad blower motor right right right very good i would start this i would start there because sometimes we're moving them is not easy i know like on the Silverados they're real easy to take out they're right there on the dash so i don't know you know how it is on that truck but i would try doing something like that if you can if not we'll have to make some smoky lava and figure out uh option b i don't know but see how easy it is to text us is to know us there you go two oh three six seven zero four one two seven or you can call us if you got a phone five one six five seven two seven four four zero i don't say that number often enough i know correct so i guess that that was above my myth how was your week very very busy uh very busy the um i went and worked on that roadrunner last week that was all yeah it's going to swap out the distributor and control box at all and we guess they are we last left you you were on your way over and i did that and then i put the distributor in the motor you know it sits right up front on the 383 right i know exactly where it starts engage the flat part of the shaft down into the oil pump make sure you know the rotor was was tight and then could not seat the distributor into the motor now that happens a lot especially with gms and usually what you do is you just tap the key and the gears mesh and suck it right down got it but this was like a half inch off it was more than normal oh really so i pulled it out again and took the old distributor and put them shaft to shaft together to measure the overall length i like the finger work very nice you have to have good things of us watching us on youtube very nice you have to have good thing work we do this and lo and behold the new distributor was a half inch longer oh and i said what the heck this is this is wrong so good on a subsequent car good when you're a half inch long it ends up it's a for a 440 out of three three oh there's a difference really uh-huh apparently so even though this was sold wait a minute i do know why because of the they call it a high deck 12 at 440 is a high deck motor which is and a 383 is a low deck motor that we have something to do with it but in summit it was advertised as for an RB engine which is the the you know the the 400 the and the uh the the 3d3 advertised correctly but either miss boxed or or whatever so i had a good conversation with the guys summit so that's going back i'm going back there today because i also found that the spark plugs the guy who built this engine did a lot of race engines cobras you know out of three port oh and we the car was running much better i put a ballast resistor in it we took a ride much much better the owner was very happy but it wasn't perfect so just for the heck of it you know i put my timing light on the motor and that car with a manual transmission should be at top dead center for timing really i would think would be like six before but okay five before for an automatic top dead tdc first deck okay got it so mine mine is minus five or six before yeah that's right so when i put my timing light on it the timing mark was past the timing tab about 30 degrees oh and i said wow so i started retarding the distributor watching the mark come back up and then the car started running really poorly because i was too far retarded and i said uh i don't like this so our good friend ray the fixer was with me he says well put it where it wants to run i said okay shut the car off and then i said you know i'd like to verify this i said maybe that dampener was changed maybe the timing tab is wrong i've seen that happen too but let's do what we can he goes well what are we what are we gonna do i said what i want to do is pull the number one plug get that cylinder up the top dead center and see if the rotor in the under distributor is pointing to the number one on the cap start start with the basics now that's always the way to do it so now the the problem is at home i have a it's a whistle stop tool it's a little it's it's a i should have brought it in um i haven't my bag that's going with me today it's a it's a chrome whistle with a 14 millimeter thread on it you thread it into the spark plug hole and as you tap the motor as the piston comes up it's it makes the noise it starts to make a whistle when you get the top dead center when it's really compressed you get the loudest noise and then if you keep going the noise gets quieter because now you're on downstroke right so i said well since i don't have that with me i'll use on my thumb i'll put my thumb on there and as it comes up you know it's crude but it's like the best we can get sometimes like because you're you're feeling the pressure of of the cylinder pushing the air out right so yeah some guys like to put a thin screwdriver down into the hole and watch it rise so i use my thumb and i got it where it was was up and i said okay stop and i went over and so it was it was an approximation at best it always ends right before i pulled the cap off the rotor was pointing to the number one tower on the on the cap i said oh that's that's close man that that's good enough for me yeah it's right and yet start and put the light on it that thing was like 30 degrees advanced so i don't know what's going on there you think the um the um crank now the crank holy wouldn't be on incorrectly it's got a it's got a pole on it right so it's it's only got it only goes on one way to think about it it could be an incorrect balancer with an incorrect zero marking or it could be the timing tab i know on chevy's a lot of times on aftermarket timing covers the timing tab bolts on with two of the timing cover bolts some of them the the original ones were were like tack welded to the to the cover yes but other ones were removable and you could buy different ones so it could be was the timing tab on the passenger side of the engine yes sir just where it should be where that's where it is on mine no right where it should be so i don't know so today i'm bringing back the whistle stop tool in case we want to go over that again but we noticed we had the plug out i said to ray now you know ray of course was the number one man fability lyncher on the on the aafd top so when you talk to ray do you go ray and does he turn around to look at you and go ray no then you turn and look at him and go ray does he do that no that'd be if i took the tom oh no tom we're talking about no so i said to him ray i gotta show you something interesting i held the plug up and he was like what's that i said okay you throw all tens of purposes my hands a spark plug this this finger is the center or it's a puppet show i love it this finger is the center electrode of the spark plug yes this finger is the ground strap that comes over and what about that other finger you have there that's for you that's for you that's only for you so normally the ground strap covers the electrode like this yes but this was back like this oh that top elect the ground strap was cut oh wait a minute i have always called out a cutback plug so i said to ray look at this this plug is a cutback plug and it's like may i just interject uh-huh they cut back the plug so you can get like a bigger spark yeah i'm more direct to be like a performing it's an old drag races trick they would do not back in the sixties okay yeah so i knew ray would know it because on the top fuel on billy lynch's nitro burning motor they did that all the time he says wow i said right the guy who built this motor was building race motors right so i said i told the owner i said this is incorrect for street motor you don't want that you don't need that you don't need so he has the original engine now granted this car had this is not the original engine in the car the original engine exhibited the same problems and they tried to fix it couldn't fix it so he had his friend build him a new engine so i had asked him okay after he built this new engine which i couldn't even turn the fan to manually turn the motor that's how tight this thing and it's got good compression oh it's my i said let me ask you this did once you had the engine done did you transfer over all the other things like the carburetor distributor starter all day he goes oh yeah we took all that stuff makes sense i said i think what you did is move the problem yep you brought the problem over to the new engine so he's like at the other engine over there you want to take a look at yeah i go back and look we pull a plug out it's got the same cutback plugs in it so ray says jay's a spot plugs you need a set of plugs so today when i go back there i'm putting that new ecu box on the firewall that he requested we change okay and a new set of eight rj 12 yc spark plugs got to 35 000 of an inch and we're going to see how how it is after that hopefully that solves the problems and he spent a lot of money in the meantime that he didn't have to spend oh because more than i do so if anybody's got to spend i'd rather see someone spend it or has it than some of it doesn't i don't understand the last thing i would want to do with a with the car like that is have mismatched numbers it's the last thing i would want to do on a car like that i would want all the numbers matching because i think it has and mind you you know where i i where my uh value lies you know what i find important is the resale value of vehicle and and now you went and took that motor i mean thankfully he still has it oh he's got the road yeah yeah but and but i would certainly certainly swap it back if if this was my vehicle good in the future he could i mean this was a beautiful car he got this it was an auction car one of the barit jacks and cars i mean when i looked at it i was like i was stunned i was like wow this car is nice so i want blankets on the fenders i even put a blanket across the front across the grill and the radiator i didn't want any metal showing on that thing it was that that right nice so yeah but it's 70 right 70 rotor 69 or 69 it's orange and it's got an orange and black interior which a little there wasn't stock i don't think but it's a 3d3 with a pistol grip shifter rides great man a lot of power you know he's got a set of mag wheels on it a couple day two things but very very nice very nice very cool that's cool so very nice yeah it's nice to hear you're working on yeah it's nice to hear that they're still out there and they're still rocking it's great i also had i uh well i'll get into this on the second half of the show third half of the show i have another problem that we could talk about but uh okay i went down to the shop but during the week and worked on the Mustang project i talked about Thursday night and it was uh it was the brakes this time they wanted to we wanted to get the brakes bled and operational so we could move that car get it to an alignment shop and actually you know drive it in and out of a shop instead of pushing it and had a problem i did you know when a car i don't know what your method is maybe you haven't even come across it i i'm curious what other people do but your face now is a car that's being yeah it's either being restored or just being worked on and and all the major brake components have been changed so it's got a new master all new lines new calipers and end or wheel cylinders and it's a dry system totally dry you know i'm curious how other people go about bleeding that system for the first time because it's great question nothing but air in that system right so i'll tell you what i did tell us because i know what i did and what i did wasn't probably as efficient even though it worked wasn't as efficient as what you're probably going to tell us now so go ahead well just the the carousel is with brake bleeding i've learned that i have a bag a big bag filled with my brake bleeding tools my arsenal and at any time i could use any one or all of those tools because now you do need you do need many different variations of of styles of tools of procedures to breed bleed different and sometimes you need one and that's it you know right all cars are different so what i like to do i'll use the example of mike's chival that we restored a few years ago dry system what i do is i take the master cylinder off and i bench bleed right always bench bleed the master then i went to i have very what's called a reverse bleeding tool it's kind of like a gun that you squeeze but there's a hose off the back that goes into the bottle of brake fluid and then there's a chamber in it like a like a clear it's a clear chamber you can see the fluid as you pump the gun it sucks the fluid out of the out of the the bottle into this chamber and that chamber you can actually adjust if how many cc's of fluid is in that chamber if you really want to get specific and then there's a hose with the fitting that goes over your your brake bleeder okay so you first you purge that tool of all the air you get solid fluid in it and then you put that the the fitting on the brake bleeder you know you crack the brake brake bleeder on let's say the right rear wheel put it on there and as you squeeze the tool it pulls the fresh fluid out of the bottle through the tool into the rear wheel cylinder and and up the the the um the lines to the master cylinder the theory is it is it's not theory it's a scientific principle air rises in fluid yes remember when you were kidding the bathtub playing with the submarines and the dolls and then what happened the bubbles come up right hey what was that oh i don't know i don't know he just making bubbles bubbles air rises in fluid so the people who made this tool theorize that by pushing fluid down through a system with all of its turns and bends and what not any air in there as you push it down is gonna it's gonna it can get trapped in any any like a bend that's up on top or may not make it all the way soon you have to keep pushing it through pushing it and pushing it and it's going to try to retract whereas if you force the fluid in the opposite direction you're kind of sending those bubbles in the way they want to go you're helping them go the way they want to go and you go to just so now what you have to do though is after you you know you you you bleed that wheel you put enough fluid in you have to go to the master cylinder and remove fluid because you're filling it now and if you don't now you make a mess so if you have someone helping you that could watch it it's it's nice and easy and you do every wheel fronts and rears and then like on mike chevelle that's all i had did that on four wheels and bang the car had a nice pedal done it was done other cars now this mustang i did the mustang that way and we got fluid coming up through the master every time then no pedal no pedal just like this nice nothing nothing so uh one of the guys in the shop was like what do you think that is i said you know normally if someone says hey i got a pedal goes to the floor i got no you know resistance what do you think bad master cylinder normally right i would think right sure it's new right never ever worked everybody's never ever worked so then i went i used my pressure bleeder which is a mighty vac tool that as a canister you put the fitting on the wheel and you put shop air on it it's Bernoulli's effect it's air over a tube creates a vacuum so with the shop air yes with the shop air flowing through this thing it sucks the fluid out of the system with with like force with the pressure it's a pressure bleeder i did all the wheels with that still had no brake pedal then i said you know what let me try something i was on the left side of the car you know drive aside and i put my bottle my empty gatorade bottle i have a hose with it a little one-way valve that you put in the bottle into some brake fluid put it on the wheel and i stroke the brake pedal and i watched that bottle and i should see either some air or some bubbles or something i saw that's what i use religiously a one-man brick works great well i saw nothing and i said okay we have a use and we have a problem we have a disconnect and i felt i said okay so now i want to see what is the interaction between this brake pedal the booster and the master there's a rod there's two rods there's a rod to the pedal and a rod to the master correct so i pull the master cylinder off it ends up i didn't have it with me at the time i verified it with a venea caliper but i did verify it the next day i have a tool right here see that beautiful little tool it's like shaped like the letter h but not really it's got a the letter h with a rod running down can you read what it says on the top there no i cannot says master cylinder with an arrow yes and this side says uh it's upside down brake brake booster with this tool you take the master cylinder off and it's got a rounded end on this this rod so you you put it against the master cylinder it's got magnets it'll actually stick oh it'll stick to the uh to the brake booster yeah and you push this rod in until it it bottoms out into the the piston on the brake booster got it that's how deep the rod has to be then you take this side for master cylinder place it against the master cylinder and the rod from the master should be out here and only have a twenty thousands of an inch gap and you can adjust it right well the rod from this car was all the way back here oh seven eighths seven eighths of an inch too short so you were pushing on a pedal pushing out even touching the master not even close wow so i told the owner of the car i got a hole in that night and i told him what was going on i said we need another a rod that's longer you need an extender that or you need extender my friend so he was gonna go buy one i said don't go buy it i said don't i'd like you to do he used a place called cj pony parts which is a very well-known Mustang you know reseller of parts i said call them i said let's just see a lot of times they know about problems and they don't tell you until you call you know they won't tell you but if you get hold of them they have they'll have disclosure right and i stressed it you know i said please do me a favor whatever you do if you want to go buy one you buy one i said but just call them anyway please well i saw him yesterday at the shop and he said yeah i called cj pony told what i had and they said guys says oh yeah we've had a lot of complaints about that booster and had kit oh man oh man really so get a load of this so he says well you know i need another rod what can you help me out and the guy says you know i recommend what i recommend you do is take that booster off and just bolt the master to the firewall and use it manually what what yeah a four-wheel display car manually so i said no that's not no no sorry thanks for playing i said let's get the correct rod so that's where at that car is sitting now until we get the rod but this tool this was sold years ago only through some of the higher end brake companies like will warden and uh uh cpp i got this off amazon for about ten bucks that tool it's not bad it's metal it's got magnets on it it's an indispensable tool now let me tell you the funny part i told us to brian the guys on thursday night right and they remember i said remember a few months ago when i bought this tool and i showed you guys on on the show and to play in traffic and they said look when you show them your tool it's very good yeah i said well okay i said i remember having it in my hand and saying okay now i have to put this somewhere and i have a feeling that wherever i put it it's going to be lost i'm never going to remember where did you put that unless you stick it to the side of your toolbox i mean and then hang like uh c clamps for a minute or something well i said to brian i said the only logical place would be in my toolbox here or at the shop in the drawer that has brake uh tools in it so actually after the show it was midnight i went out to the garage i had to know and i opened my drawer where the brake stuff was and it was in there i said thank god i finally found something that i put away that i would rarely use oh yes that would go in my my brake drawer yes with the with that the pliers and screwdriver to put the springs on for your drum brakes and things like that the paliper compressor yeah i was so happy i was so happy that would sit in sit in with there just real fast got a text from joe the undertaker at 203-670-4127 he's going back he says he doesn't know if it's a ruler but he remembers someone saying the company wanted to lock out non-authorize computer readers we were talking about oh yeah uh computer technology before so i don't know if it's i've heard something i've heard rumors about stuff like that you know the right to repair law there's there's the right to repair law that that uh shops were fighting with the dealerships that they need information the dealerships will hold them back information and the and the shops say hey these cause a soul and they come to us for service we know you want them back for service but people have a right to go wherever they want to have their car fixed there's a right to repair and it's a big movement you can look it up and the shops were making headway with that they were gaining ground on the dealerships with having them have to give them information to repair those cars so yeah that's i think we're on top of that what we're also on top of is the weather and your WHPC weather is powered by doz bagels with locations in garden city park free port love it down to now open on 7th street and goddess city today what can i say it is a gorgeous day probably mostly cloudy which it is high of 82 it's about what it is now when i came in tonight clear sky's low near 65 it is definitely definitely a top down i'm it i'm in fiat mode today i get the top down cruising the fiat having a great old time uh very good convertible weather today cliff so but you sold you sold you doin buggy so huh you'll have to have a stick head out yeah so the doo buggy yeah i have to stick it out every good refuse yeah you got a good deal yeah you know and you moved on he's gonna buy something else um and i would like to tell you about a show on this station called my hometown it's plays on thursday at 3 30 p.m this program explores clubs organizations businesses and issues in towns across nasa and sauftha counties that is long island at large weekly interviews with local guests serve to shed light on long island towns that making making a difference the other thing that makes a difference to us is the honor group of the hour if we have one what of course we do on this fine upstanding sunday here in the nutmeg state i can see clearly right into your studio so oh giant ash it's just a it's just a beautiful beautiful day here looking out at my wheat groan weather window there and here in the WHPC Connecticut studios but anyway the motorbike ready to walk over the hour this week if you enjoy traipsing through a salvage yard do you find it stimulated to be entered through acres of picked apart vehicles that look like a three-day old Thanksgiving turkey are you the most comfortable and thick slippery mud up your ankles no matter if it's rainy season or a national drought it's still muddy out there you can't climb on the kitchen chair to change ceiling light bulb but you can scale three cars stacked on top of one another on top of finding rusty old broken parts you also found thick prickly weeds rabbit raccoons poison ivy and a hornet's nest the size of a basketball but you're still gonna traips through it so if you're going through salvage yards like a kid on a treasure hunt you're part of the motormouth radio on a group of the hour this week nice yes i'm sure there are all right so we'll take a quick break here on motormouth radio and we'll be back with more of uh toward core concerns i want to tell you um a little old mobile story so you need to start singing i had another one with me and mary but no no the old's will be able to pull 42 at the shop i've been working on it spent all day on that yesterday and oh boy was that tough stuff tough to work i thought i thought that was going to be the walk in the park easy one and man did it end up being a tough carter the doctoral's opial's got a got a story to tell got it all right so we'll be back uh with more motormouth radio keep it we got it on 90.3 WHPC nine and black in the city of angels your brother here to testify because we can't do a money start baby we're going walk on whoa these guys are the kings of rock there is none higher that's not cool this show on 90.3 WHPC is brought to you by car star celebrity chase collision with two locations in librook and oceanside who remind you that new york state law says you always have the right to choose which shop will fix your car car star celebrity chase collision offers a full range of services 24 hours hoeing between man's walker manhattan shuttle service and they can help you with the rental car arrangement if needed all repairs include the car star lifetime nationwide warranty ensuring that the experts at celebrity chase collision are always on your side easy ablamos espanor more information is available at five one six five nine three zero nine two zero or online at celebrity chase collision dot com you're listening to the motor mouths of that for a motormouth i could be out driving my corvette i don't have to be here talking to you motormouth use its rayo chris yes it's me hey how you doing motormouth are you guys taking kwehoots before the show long time call a first time listener because ray brings in his tools every week and chris brings in his tools motormouth and then they compare tools you you you you excite me every time i travel always bring my motormouth radio t-shirt with me let me beat me make me right bad tech i have a question for these guys our train staff of two will help to you guys when i'm on my lunch and i'm usually driving around we look for two-door cars now instead oh i never bought a four-door car cut it out i've gotten so much response from you guys being on the radio talking this thing up quite frankly there are better things to do with your time thank you we need you guys out there like you wouldn't believe now i really appreciate you guys getting us on there it's uh it was very nice of you yeah i want to know what the is wrong with my car i'm going on a trip with you i'm up here in a Bronx motormouth and when i was i'm getting air spanish music and if you guys get this bottle this is a good way to blow it all slow all the help i i'm gonna let you guys go you guys drop the hook thank you there are answers sometimes correct ones and we may have them hey you get over here every sunday 12 to 1 you are going to tune in to hear the motormouth my friends ray guarino and chris switzer 90.3 fm whpc you might learn something yeah you can learn how to play the organ like john lord if you really practice and try hard if not you can do something like we do which isn't uh isn't as uh no is near as as interesting so back on motormouth radio with your hosts ray and chris yes the interesting bunch yeah well so far so good i guess so when we last left ray he was dr ozobeil and he was just coming out of the uh coming out of surgery and he was just taking off his robert gloves when he said oh my word what well okay the idea was to take the the 455 that's in this car i had diagnosed it as having bad exhaust valves yes so heads needed to be removed and boarded i want to be right let me tell you taking the heads off this car in the car was not easy uh the and i do i could tell by the way it was assembled that this engine had been assembled outside the car and then installed in the car and i know that because some of the bolts that they used you couldn't get inside they had to be like case i'm putting a foot and a half long no case in point the valve covers on this engine for some reason i don't know why they're quarter 20 bolts that hold it on they used straight slot screws your machine screws quarter 20 screws i don't know why this is like a stove bolt six what really god let's you know i mean they came right out no no drama but this is why i don't like non-stock okay the problem was no but they came right out there was no problem the problem was on the the passenger side this car has a seat now it doesn't have a compressor or the hose is all that's gone but it has evaporated box it's sitting there in your way so the the last screw on that side on the bottom of the valve cover was the last screw was a hex bolt all of them were straight slot screws this was a hex bolt and you couldn't get us a wrench a box and wrench over it because the hex was too close to the valve cover you couldn't put a socket on it because it was too close and it's only two inches away from the evaporator and it's back out of your working pair so you had to get in there with whatever you could get in to turn it a 30 second of an inch at a time that bolt took me over an hour to get out um i'm surprised you loosened it at all me too me too the i learned something about big block ozibils once i had the valve covers off the driver's side was actually easier even though that it was a little problematic uh the last push rod the exhaust push rod on the driver's side as you pull it out that sounds like an old drag racing movie though the last push rod good you're right to pull it out out of the head you couldn't remove it because it hit the brake booster you could not remove it and the last two push rods on the passenger side you could not remove because they hit the evaporator box you have to lift the head to get the push rods out so putting those back in is going to be a joy oh holy and then we talk about header bolts i cut the headers out of the car oh i literally cut them out with us with this is all i started cutting them out this is this is all i use my new battery powered one my milwaukee one yeah oh my oh i could just imagine you like two knees on the fender put off the car no i actually did that from under the car with car up on the lift i actually cut them from the bottom holy smokes i mean i just ever it took me four hours to get the heads off that car and and three hours of it was because of the bolts that wouldn't come out of that way even the head bolts you get to the rear head bolts on that side and you couldn't get you know your half inch ratchet on there with with an extension aside because it was the evaporator box was in the way just total pain in the neck i don't know how i'm gonna put it back together i was good at that i was just going to ask you if you if it's taking you so much torment to get to have gotten those things out what's stopping you now you're just looking at a raw block here i mean what's there you're looking at the short block yeah just pop it out i mean kids you just throw a throw an engine hoist on it and and disconnect it from the transmission get better we don't have an engine hoist to shop believe it or not um the other thing the intake manifold to get that off it had a a torque i go to your shop because this car had a torquer on it so it was a very very high performance intake and most of the bolts are 9/16 heads take your little 3/8 drive battery powered gun then it come right out except i was that again i was very nice except the bolts that are near the runners where the bolt is very close to the runner the guys and i give them credit whoever put this together they they thought outside the box they needed a smaller head bolt to fit in there they used header bolts with a 7/16 head except for one of them that a 3/8 head which i've never seen before in my life you know the spline socket to take it out i mean the intake manifold was part of that four-hour job of you you were just reinforcing my just keep it stuck and and well i told mike mike was helping me a little bit he was there to see what was going on and i said you know i said i guess i'm i guess i'm happy to say this will be the last big block holds i probably ever work on in my life you know now i'm at the stage where i'm saying like you know when you're in your teens and you're trying to be like wow this was my first whatever the future is so bright i can't wait to do a thousand more like this well now i'm at the stage where i'm saying the last this will be my last big block holes unfortunately i'm retiring from also feels from this point forward it's a good thing the owner is such a nice guy i really like this guy i love the car so i would rather and i was telling mike i said you know this could be a Pontiac it could be i'm not not a bure because yeah the problem is the motor is so wide it's a very big wide just like it's i'm just like a Chrysler wedge those wedges are very wide also yeah i said if this was a you know any other gm or a big block chevy even i said i would never have wouldn't have any of these problems i said it's only because it's that big block holds so uh that's funny now now's the time in your automotive career you have to write your book now's the time to do that boy now you have to write the the reg warrino shop manual that's how i'm gonna call it the reg warrino shop man i mean i mean the guy the guy that owns this also bill has to be a nice guy you took a saws all to his engine i mean yeah he's he's a great guy eddie is a fantastic guy and i hear he's coming down to the shop next week so i'll get to hang out with him a little bit and show him right i don't know if he's a grind tell i don't know if his heads will be done yet they may not be done so he'll get to see the inside of his engine it's in great shape it's in great shape i'm thinking that you got to pop this this motor out of there in order to put the heads back on it and put them on correctly and and this is what i know you do you when you repair something you repair it for it with the thought of having to take it apart again in mind yes well yes that's how i put things together like if i ever have to get this thing apart again at least i know that uh everything all the bolts are the same everything is accessible all of the hose clamps are all facing in a direction you can get a screwdriver on it you know all of those things and it doesn't take much to get into that assembly mode where you just take take a little pay a little consideration into if this thing has to come apart again just like the people that put this engine in the car had no consideration or someone like you that has to take the heads off it no no i don't think that's true i think yeah well no the heads run the engine they got to come out i mean it's not their fault you know the heads have to come off it happened a bunch of a bunch of stone bolt screws they went out coming together they were actually the easiest thing to take out it was the oddest thing i saw that one lone hex head ball that was the odd ball if they were out of straits i don't care anyone says someone someone you know what the bed upbringing i'll tell you i'll tell you someone was vindictive i'll tell you something picture how the heads are now angled from the engine yeah yeah that screw is literally facing at probably a 30 degree angle the evaporator box if it had been a straight slot i couldn't i would need a bent screwdriver i couldn't have got on it with a screw driver i only got about it you want to see i got about a case of them even a stubby even a stubby would have been a problem it would have been more of a problem that that it was if it was a straight side now i've never seen straight side screws on the valve cover before but like i said the rest of them they came right or unless it was a 29 old but a 29 chevy six the rest came right off so that was a and you know and i will say the use of the header bolts was ingenious because they needed a very small bolt head and they had it because they had header bolts and i give these guys these guys actually get my star of of fame credit many cause i work on get you know the thumbs down razi award for the way the last guy did things these guys get my thumbs up first of all they had all the header bolts in a lot of guys leave some out they had them all in no matter how hard they were to get in they got them all in but the other thing was i was looking at this big bracket on the driver's side that cradled the alternator once i took that off and i said you know i wonder if this bracket is just there were three bolts and two of them behind the power steering pump and i said i wonder if these are all bolted to the head or if it's the head and the block and i'm hoping it's just the head because i'll take the head off with that bracket on it because to get the two lower bolts out i got to take the power steering pump off and i didn't want to do that if i didn't have to oh got it so i did take the top bolt out there was a like a a black battery cable on it i said oh this is i guess now usually that you know on the head there's a bolt with a stud you know stud it and that's usually where the battery ground goes typically i don't know a Pontiac it does yeah so i saw this too it's on it's on my Chrysler as well i said okay maybe they just grounded the battery here no what that was when i i loosened it and i followed the cable that was just they used a piece of black battery cable that they made to ground from the head to the chassis so they actually grounded the car and then from the chassis there was another from that point was another ground strap up to the radio support i'm like these guys actually finally i found a guy who grounded a car correctly or at least correctly so i was i they said they get my my star of approval for the okay nobody does that me and Kevin other than you can't kill Kevin and me we go to cruise lights are are like you know we used to Chris when we used to go to cruise nights or in car shows and we pick out the craziest accessory or the you know the the car spinner on the air cleaner you know the the meter to clean up will Kevin and i pick out the worst electrical malfunction malfeasance right because Kevin is highly versed in yes electrical uh cha cha as well and if we're at shows without each other we send each other pictures like look at this idiot did so when i saw that i said oh man this guy gets he gets a star i mean this is a gold star car here so okay okay very very happy very happy it's funny you should talk about electrical connections and electrical components real fast i have found that there is there are different types of electrical tape you ever noticed that yes yes there's electrical tape and i know that the best and tell me if i'm wrong but one of the best is called neto and ETTO okay neto tape is is one of the best and i have found that uh i have electrical tape in different uh that have different responsibilities it's come down to this and the neto tape is the taper of choice if i'm attaching two wires together electrically but i also have tape that if you look at the inside and that's how you can tell mind me let me stop myself for a second that's how you can tell what the brand of electrical tape it is if you look on the inside of the label you will see neto on the inside if you don't have it in a neto box but also there is electrical tape that has nothing inside and that tape is junk yeah basically junk and you know who uses that tape phone company no why i know that because my father worked for the phone company for 36 years and i think always came home with the role of electrical tape right right that stuff is pure trash yeah because the glue seeps out of it yeah yeah yeah you can stick the rolls together you can take the rolls like a magnet you take the roll stick it up against anything and it'll stay there because the glue is seeped out so that stuff barely you you use it to barely secure newspapers yeah that are being recycled yeah there you go that's what that stuff is there's also the fibery kind of tape that's um oh that's the friction tape they call it friction tape now oh gosh as far as electric i have it i have a place in health with that stuff as far as electrical goes it's scotch i think it's scotch 303 gotch is good yes because there's a number does it not i think it's really yes that's a very very good electrical tape yeah and you could tell it's funny because it has a texture about it first of all it's got to stretch yeah it's got to stretch a little bit yeah so you can wrap it around it almost if you can get it to the point like it's um not a tourniquet but uh an ace bandage you can get it to stretch where that stretch kind of secures the the connection together that's actually good tape this stuff from the phone company no that's like it's like wallpaper so yeah i i noticed there is a certain texture and dexterity right right good tape compared to good tape to bed so you're right all all electrical tape is not the same yeah yeah very very true very true the other thing i saw in this car that i thought was very high marks somebody had a work in the industry because they had put a Mallory distributor in the car years ago and the wires in the olds so the wires that come out from it they had to attach those to the to the wiring from the car and i guess the Mallory just gave them blank wires so they used single terminal single terminal uh weather pack connectors so you know i used i used weather pack on my car i bought a kit to make the connectors this car has been together over 25 it's been sitting for over 25 years so somebody 25 years ago when weather packs were just kind of new that's like back in 90s put weather packs on this car so somebody who worked on this car was definitely up on electric because they probably the same guy i did the ground same guy that used a weather pack which at the time was really only a dealership item so i got an AS Getty when i see him next week i want to ask him who was the guy you know who's who gets the credit for that you know it's like i told you when i was in a restaurant one time and i had a fantastic my meal was great and and i said something to the waitress about it so she was oh well the chef will be happy so the chef came out you know to say oh hey what's going on you shook his wooden spoon at you and i said to him i said he goes oh i heard there was a comment from his table i said yeah i said are you the guy responsible for this meal i'm eating well apparently he took that the wrong way like yeah all new guy responsible i was like dude excellent this is the best i've ever had i mean if you know if you were responsible for this your aces in my book i had a with friends different oh it was like oh wow thanks a lot thanks for the with that i thought i was gonna have to kill you and so i'll tell you there for a minute i said no look you're still all next week i said yeah right you know i said uh responsibility can go different ways i said this went the good way this was like high responsibility very very good so yeah whoever was responsible for wiring that car i give them top the guy had to be either deal a mechanic or an electric some sort actually Jim just texted us at 203-670-4127 he said scotch 30 the best sorry okay i said 303 i'm sorry yeah i added a three okay i guess oh yeah but yeah it's important it's important and i had a lot because there's a lot of times and i know you've done it too you look at cars and and look at the cars that other other shade tree mechanics have worked on cars that you purchase cars that you're working on and you see those you see the connection the wire connection with the the electrical tape has literally peeled off it and it's probably just hanging down like here like the wire and the electrical tape is just hanging it with the chair wire and i can show you the pictures in my phone and they're all believe it or not from mid-year mustangs some of the worst wiring everybody these guys you know these are the amateurs 60s mustangs yeah i call them mid-years i don't know if that's right or not i i don't know i call them mid-years but these are some of the the amateur jobs that you see well guys take two wires and usually different colors they got a red wire now i'm going to splice a green wire to it and they strip it back and they take the wires and go like this they just lock them together and then put about three pounds of tape on it and think that's a good electrical connection just remember where the history of uh 90 percent of these vehicles all went through some sort of high school parking lot that's usually the that's the death knell right there right they've all been some high school kids 600 dollar beater and and i'm sure there's there are clarion stereos and and aftermarket FM converters and you know blow punk under dash and worse yes but you know you know stupid fog lights attached to the grill well kind of stuff that you had to contend with you also know that we're at the end of our hour here kim is in the do thunder road best of spring scenes so stay tuned for how i know you do because like i show better than ours kris we'll be back next week i'll give you more tales from the from the crypt of what goes on here and uh and we'll have more talk about i'll give you the update on the roadrunner and uh stay tuned watch social media motormouth radio or uh on youtube it's real underscore motormouth video and this show will be up there later on and i'll post some pictures about some of the stuff we talked about today and all that good stuff so with that i will fall did you a fondue chris where we tell people waiting for me out in the parking lot don't follow us home and don't use any electrical tape on the fondue you got it all right more math radio out we'll see you next week on 90.3 WHPC see you bye bye! 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